Brand of an illegal trade

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Viktor Bout was not the only gunrunner to bust the arms embargoes on almost
every African war in recent times — but he was the biggest and the best of
them, often selling to both sides.

Alex Vines, of Chatham House in London, who spent years chasing Bout when he
was a UN investigator, says that Bout’s mistake was becoming too high
profile: “He was brand, the McDonald’s of sanctions-busting.”

There are still men like Bout but they are fewer in number and lower profile.

While arms embargoes remain in place across the world, the scale of the wars
and volume